Journalist Criticizes Journalist

In November, child actor Angus Jones—one of the stars of the hit sitcom Two and a Half men—publicly criticized the show that has made him a multi-millionaire. In effect, he condemned the vulgar tone of the program.

Anyone who has seen this program knows that the kid is only confirming what they already have seen and heard themselves. The plots are about sex, the characters are sex-driven, and the dialogue is not so much sexual innuendo as it is crude and openly sexual remarks that one could hear in any junior high school yard. Yes, 13-year-olds laugh like hell at this stuff.

But the success of this long-running sitcom is testament to the depths to which our culture now stoops when looking for 22 minutes-worth of mindless entertainment. I confess that I watched this program the first two years of its existence, but soon grew tired of the ever-increasing focus on the bedroom and the bathroom—the two rooms about which Two and a Half Men seems to be concerned.

In a December 1, 2012 column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, their television columnist found fault with Angus Jones, saying that he sabotaged his career by this “bizarre” rambling of his. Of course the columnist also noted that the 19-year old is “newly evangelized.”

Well, well…I think we’re finally getting to the meat of the criticism. How critical would the television critic have been if Jones say, spoke out against the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms, or passed negative judgment on the pro-life movement, or defended atheism as sober way of life? Personally, I think Jones would have been painted as a hero for speaking his young mind.

But the moment you announce that Christianity is the impetus behind your stand, you’ve committed one of the news media’s seven deadly sins: Thou shalt not try to profess your belief in God—at least not if you make your living in the entertainment industry. Morals be damned.

The columnist even went so far as to say that if the young actor was truly appalled at the bawdy nature of the show, shouldn’t he give away his hefty salary to the more needy, since this would be the truly Christian thing to do?

Just as the columnist gives his salary to the needy, I suppose.

(Read more at Good Writers Block)

Journalist Criticizes Journalist

 Journalist Criticizes Journalist

Pa GOP’s State Capitalism: The Shell Subsidy

By Bob Guzzardi

Efficient and economical energy production lowers the cost and raises the standard of living for all.

Free market pricing, where misallocations are penalized, is the most efficient system to develop energy. Government is not a venture capitalist.

What the government giveth, the government taketh away. With Act 13 of 2012, the Republican General Assembly and Governor imposed at tax, obscuring it with the rhetorically inaccurate description “Impact Fee” which distributes tax revenues to all counties including counties, like Philadelphia and Bucks which have banned Marcellus Shale drilling (see Act 87 of 2012 below)  and on the very same day, Feb. 14, 2012, the same Republican General Assembly and governor gave billion dollar private business Shell Oil a huge tax break by targeting a tax free “Keystone” zone for a Shell Cracker plant. 

Again, with Act 85 of 2012 and on the same day, July 2, 2012, Republican Leadership again “privileges”, as the Leftists say, Shell Oil with billions in tax subsidies.

Link

New World Disorder

A group called Team Black Sheep posted this video of a homemade drone buzzing a helpless French police car in Paris. One does not need the imagination of Stephen King to be a tad concerned about how our ever-advancing technology is going to affect the future.

Maybe the Occupy Wall Streeters and “anonymous” hackers in their Guy Fawkes masks have the right idea. Fawkes, after all, had the goal of returning Catholicism to England.

There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man.
–Leo Tolstoy

Cryptowit

By William W. Lawrence Sr


Kzjkgz ocdif D cvqz vi diozmznodib rvgf. Czgg, D’h epno omtdib oj cjgy ht bpo di.

Mjwzmo Hdoxcph

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we begin to trace the development of ideas that it becomes fascinating.
James Clerk Maxwell

China Projected To Pass Japan In Ad Spending

China is expected to pass Japan in 2014 to become the world’s second largest ad market behind the United States, according to eMarketer.com.

Asia-Pacific now has the second-largest advertising economy worldwide after North America.

The Milk Cliff And Other Scares

By Bob Guzzardi

The “Milk Cliff” scares us as milk prices, supposedly, will skyrocket unless Farm Subsidies for privileged few producers are imposed . Farm Subsidies are, essentially, Republican ‘earmarks’ for their constituents.

James Bovard, in WSJ, lays out the problem. This is legislative dereliction of duty to the Forgotten Taxpayer, and the forgotten consumer, who is hammered with farm price subsidies. Will Republican Leadership sell us out again? Odds makers are giving odds they will. What do you think?

All tax cuts are not created equal; some are more equal than others in Obama’s State Capitalist word. To be accurate, though, it is a bipartisan Big Government State Capitalist Weltanschauung that infects the lawmakers in Washington and Harrisburg.

Billionaires benefit General Electric, inheritor of Enron’s wind energy program, German based Siemans, and, of course, Warren Buffet and his band of billionaire Big Government Socialists distributing wealth to themselves.

Wind subsidies, and other ‘renewable energy’ subsides,  a bipartisan assault on The Forgotten Taxpayer, lobbyists swarm to save privileged tax cuts for billion dollar businesses while the rest of us taxpayers are Forgotten as the bipartisan Fiscal Cliff and Obamacare, an avalanche of new taxes, crushes the rank and file taxpayers, who is us.

Bipartisan, another word for Big Government Tax Increase.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiners eloquently informs us here.

4th Annual Christmas Tea Party And After Party

Independence Hall Tea Party Association is having its 4th Annual Christmas Tea Party and After Party, Saturday, Jan. 5 from noon to 3 p.m. at the Independence Visitors Center Ballroom, 6th and Market streets, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.

The tea party is free. The after-party which starts at 1 p.m. is $20 or $10 for college and high school students or $5 for children 13 and under.

For information call Teri Adams at 215-620-3055 or visit here.

God In Human Language

On this 9th Day of Christmas we offer this column by Father Frank Pavone

By Father Frank Pavone

Christmas is God in human language.

It is about a God who, in loving us, knows how to speak to us.

The Letter to the Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2).

Christmas is revelation, manifestation, showing what was hidden. The Advent cry, “Open up, ye heavens from above!”, expresses the human need for meaning, and for the answers to basic questions: Why are we here? What is this life about? Where are we going? Is there life after death? How are we supposed to live? Does God exist, and if so, is he friend or foe? How does he want to be worshipped?

All the philosophers of history, though coming to certain conclusions correctly through human reason (which, though wounded by sin, is not destroyed) nevertheless could not reach the full answers to all these questions. God needed to speak, and he needed to speak in human language.

So the Son, who reveals the Father, has come, and Christmas celebrates that coming. Continuing that passage from Hebrews, which is used by the Church for Christmas Day Mass, we read, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (v. 3).

So, thanks to Christmas, we know who God is, what life is about, what God expects us to do, and what awaits us beyond the grave. We know how to obtain eternal life. We have found what the human heart has always sought. St. John writes, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven” (Revelation 4:1). Christmas opens that door and shows us God in human language!

Christmas destroys the “tyranny of relativism,” the confusion of indifferentism, the idea that each person can create his or her own morality, or that one religion is as good as the next. As we welcome the birth of this child, we welcome the one who will preach the Sermon on the Mount, instruct us by parables, and establish his Church to continue making his teachings clear.

To welcome the Divine Child today is to welcome all that he will do and teach, the easy and the difficult, the comforting and the challenging, without considering ourselves authorized to pick and choose among those teachings.

It makes no sense to welcome the child but reject his teachings. It is inconsistent to prepare for and celebrate Christmas but refuse to accept the fullness of the Gospel that this child proclaimed.

That Gospel has taught from the beginning that life must be protected, including life in the womb. There can be no such thing as a “pro-choice Christian.” A rejection of even a single life is a rejection of Christ himself.

This Advent and Christmas, let us welcome Christ and all that he teaches, and all whom he loves.

Cryptowit

By William W. Lawrence Sr

Bg Lvbxgvx, bm bl paxg px mtdx lhfx bgmxkxlm bg max zkxtm wblvhoxkxkl tgw maxbk eboxl matm bm uxvhfxl xgwnktuex, tgw hger paxg px uxzbg mh mktvx max wxoxehifxgm hy bwxtl matm bm uxvhfxl ytlvbgtmbgz.

Ctfxl Vexkd Ftqpxee

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Happy Birthday, Mom Mom

Traditional Breakfast Best Hangover Cure

Happy New Year.

And how are you feeling this morning? Well, what you need is a good traditional American breakfast of bacon, eggs, coffee and orange juice as it appears to be a nearly perfect hangover cure.

Amino acids in the bacon ease withdrawal symptoms; cysteine in the eggs counteracts the aldehyde that builds up in the body after heavy drinking; the caffeine in the coffee is an antidote to adenosine which is the main reason for hangover headaches; and the vitamin C in orange juice accelerates alcohol metabolism.

Figure out a way to get some asparagus, which has compounds that reverse the negative effects of alcohol on body cells, and hummas which includes vitamin B6 in the meal and you will have the perfect hangover cure.

Hat tip WTOP.Com

 

Traditional Breakfast Best Hangover Cure

Traditional Breakfast Best Hangover Cure